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Our London branch has recently opened up Statista, one of the world’s leading statistics, market research and business data portals to our users.

Consisting of over 1,500,000 statistics on over 80,000 topics from more than 18,000 sources, Statista provides business statistics and industry reports on consumer goods, trade and retail, media and advertising , sport and recreation, technology and telecommunications, transport and tourism.

Industry reports are available covering market trends, international brands, sales figures, companies and countries, with useful infographic on popular topics.

The University has set up a project group to investigate and implement the decommissioning of Athens authentication for accessing our resources and instead use a Single Sign-on system. This process already has begun with the resources among our Gale subscription being one of our first publishers to make the switch.

For Gale resources there should be no difference when accessing a Gale resource on campus but when accessing it from off campus, users not using the VPN will now be taken to the University sign on page (like the image at the top of this post) rather than the Athens one. Once users have logged in they should be able to access the resource in the same way they can from on campus.

This week we have begun changing to this system for Proquest resources, including a number of databases and all of our Ebook Central ebooks. This means when users access a Proquest ebook they will no longer have to enter their Athens username and password but will instead be using their University details.

Over the next few months it is anticipated that all of our electronic resources’ suppliers will be switched over to single-sign on and Athens will be decommissioned. This will have the obvious advantage that users will no longer have to remember a separate password for off-campus or ebook access. There is no intention to switch off the Cisco AnyConnect VPN which will continue to work in the same way it does now (i.e. it allocates a campus IP address to the user utilising the VPN).

We will issue further updates as the project progresses. If you have any queries, or experience any issues with logging in to any resources during the changeover, please contact us for help and advice – Library@lboro.ac.uk

If you’ve just started your PhD research, or if you’re looking for help and advice about finding information, we’re running a workshop next Wednesday that will prove extremely helpful.

This session enables you to turn ideas into an effective search strategy and statement. It outlines the current information landscape and takes you through the stages involved in deciding upon and developing an appropriate search strategy, as well as enabling you to create a search statement that you can put into practice. You will be able to seek and find research material in an effective and efficient manner using the resources available to you at Loughborough University, but also in the future too. You will be able to test and evaluate the search strategies and stantements for your own research topic as well as tryiing out citation techniques and setting up alerts to keep you up-to-date and further develop your knowledge of your research topic.

Expert staff will be on hand to facilitate the session and provide guidance on resources and strategies. You will also learn the key skill of critically assessing the results that you can find to further develop your search strategy.

The workshop will be taking place in Library Seminar Room 1 between 9.30am to 12.30pm on Wednesday 8th August. As spaces are quite limited, you will be required to book first. To do so, follow this link:

This month’s database trial from Brill’s Primary Source Collection takes a trip east as we explore the archives of a venerable Chinese newspaper.

The North China Herald is the prime printed source for the history of the foreign presence in China from around 1850 to 1940s. No other newspaper existed over such an extended period, and covers it in such incredible depth and variety. The fully text-searchable North China Herald Online will be one of the primary resources on a period which continues to shape much of China’s world and worldview.

Every summer Learn is ‘rolled over’ to the next academic year. This means that modules from the current academic year are copied to an archived version of Learn in readiness for the new academic year. All module content on the majority of taught modules is automatically hidden in the active version of Learn pending review (and updating as appropriate) by module tutors.

This year the rollover will take place on Monday 23rd and Tuesday 24th July. At the same time, the system which underpins Learn (Moodle) will be updated to version 3.4. As a consequence, http://learn.lboro.ac.uk/will not be available from 7:30am on Monday 23rd July through to 5:00pm on the Tuesday 24th July.

Anyone visiting Learn during this period will be greeted with a message explaining the downtime, and IT Services will keep the site updated throughout the procedure.

During the rollover, a copy of the current system is taken and this creates the “Learn archive” for the previous 2017/18 academic year. Material in the Learn archive is only available to those students and staff who were registered on the module during that academic year. The new version of Learn is reset, removing student submissions, forum posts, feedback responses etc. and updating the module codes to reflect the 2018/19 academic year. Module content uploaded by staff is not removed.

Today marks the 100th anniversary celebrations of the creation of the Royal Air Force, highlighted by a flypast over Buckingham Palace of 100 RAF aircraft past and present, including the iconic Supermarine Spitfire and the new F35 Lightning stealth fighter, as well as the Red Arrows display team.

The RAF was formed 100 years ago on 1st April 1918 when the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service merged to create the world’s first independent air service. It has since played a pivotal role in British and indeed world history, not least of all during World War 2 in the Battle of Britain in the summer of 1940.

Loughborough University has a long and proud tradition in the area of aeronautics through its Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering. It began life as the Loughborough Aeronautical College, which obtained a contract in 1942 to teach Fleet Air Arm engineers using many of the operational types of RAF aircraft as instructional airframes, including Spitfires and Hurricanes.

The department is now housed in purpose built facilities that includes laboratories, workshops, wind-tunnels a flight simulator and a technical display area where a BAE Systems Hawk jet plane – a type still in use by the RAF – takes pride of place.

It goes without saying that in support of this department the Library has a vast cornucopia of resources about aircraft design, engineering and history, as well as many books in our history section detailing the exploits of the RAF in the many conflicts they have operated in during the last century, from World War 1 to the post 9-11 era. Why not visit our subject guides to find out more?

We’re thrilled to bring you our new acquisition, Victorian Popular Culture from Adam Matthew Digital. This primary source archive is an important research resource for historians, social scientists and literary scholars, spanning the period from 1779 to 1930 and showcasing popular entertainment in Britain, America and Europe.

Explore a wealth of media history in the form of printed books, early film, posters, playbills, photographs, objects and ephemera as well as contextual essays and an interactive chronology. Collections include: Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment, Spiritualism, Sensation; Magic and Circuses, Sideshow and Freaks.

The University is investing £1.3M on upgrading essential IT infrastructure, resulting in temporary downtime of all IT facilities across campus from 3pm on Wednesday 11th July. All University IT Systems will be unavailable during this upgrade, including telephones and printers.

The upgrade has an expected finish time of midnight, though services should also be considered as at risk the following day.

This upgrade will effect the Library considerably, as it will mean that there will be no IT access or provision at all once the work begins. As well as the printer and telephone networks across campus, the Library housekeeping system and Library Catalogue Plus will be unavailable as well.

In light of this, we have taken the decision to close the Library at 5.30pm on Wednesday July 11th instead of our usual later 8pm closing time. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

The University will be holding Open Days on Friday 29th June and Saturday 30th June. Visitors, students and staff should be aware that campus, and in particular the Library, will likely be extremely busy on both days.

As usual the Library will be hosting several displays and stands by other support services within the University on both days, and they will be taking up temporary residence later this week on Level 3. As such, certain study areas on this level will be unavailable during this time and will be cordoned off from public use.

On Monday 25th June and Tuesday 26th June work begins on replacing the workstation desks on Levels 1 & 2. This will necessitate the temporary removal of all of the PC workstations from these floors, including the Catalogue and Short Stay PCs.

All of these machines will placed into storage in Group Study Rooms 1A and 2A, which will mean that these rooms will be unavailable for booking while this work is carried out.

Week beginning Monday 2nd July the old desks will be removed from Levels 1 & 2 for removal by University Facilities Management – this may involve some noise and disruption, and the lift may be unavailable to visitors while the desks are being moved.

The new furniture should be delivered during the following week – again, this will involve some noise and disruption. Once this is completed, IT Services will remove the PCs from storage and begin setting them up on the new desks.

Access to the shelving and other facilities on Levels 1 & 2 will remain unaffected, however there will be no PC workstations available to use on either floor while this work is completed. Workstations are still available on Levels 3 & 4, and staff are available to assist with catalogue searching at our Enquiry Desks.